39_3 - Glass in Early Islamic Society

GLASS IN EARLY ISLAMIC SOCIETY-

TOWARD A GREATER UNDERSTANDING

Patricia L. BAKER

Our knowledge of glass production in the Mediaeval Islamic Middle

East has been augmented by recent archaeological excavations in the

region, although we still await the publication of a number of reports,

describing in detail the significant vessels and furnace finds. This article

suggests that investigation of the early and mediaeval literary sources

from the Arab world could also lead us to a greater appreciation of how

glass was valued and appreciated in those times, and of what qualities

were deemed more aesthetically important by the purchases and collector.

Yet these very qualities were for some reason set aside by the fourteenth

century, when highly decorated enamelled and gilded work on poor

quality glass had become the fashion at the Mamluk court.

Keywords: Islam, glass, Middle East, Mediaeval, literature

Archaeological excavations in the Middle East, especially work undertaken

since the 1930s, have increased our awareness and knowledge of glass

production in the lands of Eastern Mediterranean during the early Islamic period, while scientific analyses carried out in more recent times have alerted scholars and students alike to the exciting possibility of isolating certain regional

productions. That said, we are still waiting for some nine reports of important archaeological excavations and surveys concerning early to mediaeval Islamic sites in Iran alone, to be published (Kroger 1995, 2-7) and probably this number

would be tripled if similar excavation sites in Syria and Egypt were included.' Furthermore a number of commentators have noted that, in archaeological reports concerning Islamic sites, glass finds are less likely to receive such

intensive study as given to ceramic finds. As Salam-Liebich (1978, 138) ruefully remarked "Glass from excavations [of Islamic sites] is not always kept, and when kept it usually makes its way to museum basements, where it is lost,

forgotten, and seldom published." Less than a decade ago James Allan (1995, vii) gave expression to a sense of frustration, felt by many colleagues, at the

Vol. XXXIX 2004 3

scarcity of reliable information regarding glass finds "Where stratigraphy has

been recorded, as at Siraf [south-west coast of Iran], the lack of publication ofthe excavated material is tragic, if not a disgrace."2

While we await these delayed publications, perhaps it is opportune to

explore another avenues, such as the role of glass in early Islamic society.

Investigation of the chronicles, geographies, scientific works and other

documentary evidence from the period shed light on how glass was perceived in

contemporary society and culture and such ideas were to remain influential in

later centuries.

Glass shards, both architectural and vessel, have been found during

excavations of some five of the seventeen so-called Umayyad desert palaces,3but unfortunately little information has been published.4 Often the locations ofthese palace-compounds are in region historically associated with glass

production but conversely in some cases, for example Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqilocated near Palmyra, east-northeast of Damascus, glass production in theimmediate region has never been recorded so in such cases glass would havebeen transported to the site. It is logical to assume that the Umayyad political

leadership wished to incorporate such decoration and artefacts within its wallsthat conveyed to the observer notions of status, power, prosperity andmagnificence, and that included not only intricate plaster work, wall-paintings,but also mosaics and window glass. But was it simply that the rulers wished the

observers to note and marvel at such lavish architectural decoration usuallyfound in the main rooms often designated by the archaeologists as "audience-halls" or the bath-house, or did they wish it to evoke other connections?

The early Islamic Arabic commentaries resonate with stories of the

Qur'anic prophets, and one in particular was closely associated with majesty,super-human intelligence, and justice; this was Sulayman (the BiblicalSolomon), who could understand the languages of animals and birds, who was

told news by the winds, who knew the hundredth name of Allah, who possessed a magic mirror which reflected all the cities of the world, etc. (E/2 q.v. "Sulayman b. adwud"). Like the legendary Iranian ruler, Jamshid, who was credited with the invention of building construction, weapon and textile

production, Sulayman was associated with magnificent "palaces" such as the Roman Temple of Jupiter complex at Baalbek, Lebanon, commonly understood to have been constructed for his Egyptian consort. Both men were understood to

be closely linked with Achaemenid Persepolis and Pasargadae,5 and with less

palatial constructions - but nevertheless very important to the community -bath-houses (Soucek 1975, 257; Dow 1996, 114). According to al-Tabari (d. 923

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GLASS IN EARLY ISLAMIC SOCIETY - TOWARD A GREATER UNDERSTANDING

A.D.), one of early Islam's most important and influential Arab commentators,Jamshid was said to have ordered the making of a glass chariot which, pulled by

demons, rode across the skies (Rosenthal 1981, 350) while Solomon possessed"one thousand houses of glass on a wooden [carpet], in which there were threehundred wives and seven hundred concubines transported on the wind" (Brinner

1991, 154). However, one story is particularly relevant in the context ofarchitectural glass in Umayyad palaces: the arrival of Balqis (also spelt Bilqis),the queen of Sheba, at the court of Solomon. Al-Tabari explained that one of

these glass palaces was constructed with the express purpose of deterringSolomon from any thought of an alliance with Balqis, explaining the jinns anddemons "were convinced that if only he could see for himself the hirsute growth

on her legs, he would abandon any idea of making her his consort... [so] Theybuilt him a castle of green glass, making floor tiles [tawabiq] of glass thatresembled water" (Brinner 1991, 162; see also Qur'an XXVII, 44). When she

entered for an audience with Solomon, thinking the floor was water, she liftedher robes, revealing her hairy legs. Despite a sense of shock, Solomon wascharmed by her conversation and determined she should be his queen. Hecommanded his courtiers to find a solution and so the first depilatory paste was

invented (Brinner 1991, 163). This was a well-known embellishment to the

Qur'anic description, probably first set down in Arabic in the Islamic world asearly as the late seventh century A.D. by Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 727 or 732A.D.) in his Kitab al-tijan (Soucek 1993, 111), who described the depilatory

paste as being made from lime collected from bath-house pipes (Soucek 1993,115). The story was repeated in tales associated with the early prophets of Islam

(Thackston 1978, 316-17) and later illustrated in certain manuscripts (e.g. 1552Majalis al-'ushshaq by Sultan Husayn Mirza, Persian ms. Ousley Add. 24, fol.127b, Bodleian Library, Oxford).6

Such stories endured for centuries, whether in sixteenth-century Istanbulwhere Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66) was referred to as "the

[new] Solomon of the Age" or Suleyman-i Zaman (Necipoglu-Kafadar 1985,100-01, see also 103-04), or in nineteenth-century Iran where Fath 'Ali Shah (r.1797-1834) would formally stand holding a golden staff surmounted by a figure

of a hoopoe bird, so associating himself with both the Prophet Musa (BiblicalMoses) and Solomon respectively. Even the ladies of the royal harem were notadverse to drawing comparisons with Solomon and more particular with Balqis

as shown by Ismihan Sultan, the daughter of the Ottoman sultan Selim II (r.1566-74), who took her bath in her glass-paned garden pavilion in Uskudar,Istanbul (Necipoglu 1997, 40).

Vol. XXXIX 2004 5

Such stories could simply be dismissed as myth and fantasy but the

published reports on the so-called desert palaces of the Umayyad period, when these give the locations of the architectural glass finds, note that shards of coloured and sometimes cold-painted window glass, featured in the large assembly rooms designated as "audience halls," as at Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi

(Salam-Liebich 1978), or in the bath-house complex as at Khirbat al-Mafjar (Hamilton 1959; Brosh 1990). The last complex is located not far from Tiberias,whose bath-house had been long associated with Solomon (Dow 1996, 114), an intriguing connection especially when it is remembered that some modern scholars suggest the early building work relating to the bath-house at Khirbat al-Mafjar was undertaken during the reign of the Umayyad caliph, Sulayman b.

'Abd al-Malik (r. 715-17), who could have been eager to promote connotations with such a fabulous ruler and prophet.7 Again the installation of such window

glass in plaster grilles could be a mere architectural conceit but if it is taken into context with the finds from Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, another possibility arises. Apart from the numerous window glass shards in various colours excavated from this Qasr al-Hayr complex build around 728-9 A.D., a distinctive kind of

glass floor "tile" was found which parallels similar glass finds from the 1952 Raqqa excavations, discovered in the "audience hall" of the Abbasid caliph, al-Mu'tasim (r. 833-42 A.D.). These fragments are made of transparent colourless

glass with a very slight green or turquoise tinge, as displayed in DamascusNational Museum's Raqqa Room8 and presumably were made in the same wayas mosaic cube manufacture, that is by pouring hot glass into an iron mouldcontaining rows of small square indentations.9 According to Salam-Liebich

(1978, 144) and Abdul-Hak (1960, 141) the remains of plaster on the reliefsurface showed that it was this relief face that pressed into wet plaster, so that a

smooth glassy floor surface was presented to the observer. Surely this association with Solomon and his court, and so with majesty and justice, was deliberate on the part of the patron, mason or decorator. It is tempting to suggest

a similar explanation lies behind the finds of small lozenge, circular and "cartouche" pieces of glass and mother-of-pearl, thought to have formed a wall or floor panel, found in the mid-ninth-century Abbasid royal complex of Jawsaq al-Khaqani in Samarra, Iraq.10 In this palace were also found several pieces of

glass millifiori tiles for use on floors or, more probably given their undamaged surface, for wall panels; there are indications in the contemporary poetry that

glass was indeed used on the walls, as al-Butituri spoke of one palace "the glass walls of its interior/ As if its striped marks were streaks of rain clouds arrayed between clouds, dark and light" (Meisami 2001, 73).11 And a statement of the

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twelfth-century Jewish traveller, Benjamin of Tudela, speaks of a Damascus "astronomy" palace whose walls

were clad with glass, perforated in places so allow the sun's rays to be admitted and thus the hour to be calculated on a dial

(Signer, 1983, 90-91).12There is no doubt that glass was considered in early mediaeval Islamic

society as a luxury product. Umm Hakim, a favourite of caliph Hisham (r. 724- 43), owned a fabulous green glass drinking bowl, apparently round like a human skull, embellished with a gold handle, weighing eighty mithqals (in total, or just the glass?), that is approximately the weight of eighty gold dinar coins 13 ; this

was obviously put on show occasionally as it formed the focus for several jokes told by his successor, Walid, to his courtiers. This object survived the fall of the Umayyad dynasty because it was recorded in the treasury of the Abbasid caliph

Harun al-Rashid (Hamilton 1988, 93-94). Glass sometimes formed an important

part of diplomatic gifts from the caliph; among rich, luxurious textiles, rugs, manuscript and an onyx table, al-Ma'mun (r. 813-17) sent an Indian ruler "a

goblet (jam) of [Egyptian glass] zujaj fir 'awni one finger (isba) thick (ghilazahu), and one-and-a-half spans (shibr) wide (fathuhu), in the center of which, engraved in high relief (nabit), a representation (surah) of a lion, faced by a kneeling man, who has inserted his arrow (sahm) in his bow (qaws) aiming towards the lion... taken from the treasury (khizanah) of Marwan b. Muhammad

[d. 749]" (al-Qaddumi 1996, 77, also 183).So thickness of glass was obviously considered aesthetically pleasing. A

victory banquet held to celebrate the taking of Aleppo in 1038 was celebrated

with articles of rock crystal (billawr) and solid thick (muhkam) glass (al-

Qaddumi 1996, 132).14 Another piece was known as Qalb Salim ("pure heart") owned by Abu al-Futuh Yusuf, the important governor of Sicily during 989-98. Made as a blood-letting cup, it was small bowl, cut in high-relief with its two

handles cut from the clear glass body, with "the name of Harun al-Rashid [d. 809] and the year of manufacture ... inscribed in four lines on its edges

(haffatihi)" (al-Qaddumi 1996, 195-96). Al-Muqaddasi, writing 985-86, mentions muhkam as a speciality of Baghdad, while Ibn al-Faqih notes this category of glass was usually made as goblets, skull-shaped bowls, cups etc.

(Lamm 1941, 15). It would seem zujaj fir 'awni (lit. Pharaonic, thus Egyptian

glass) was cast glass, perhaps with a slight yellowish tinge whereas muhkam referred to a specific kind of clear thick glass, not necessarily cast (Lamm ibid.).

And it is apparent that the fire-polish of glass was also considered visually

attractive because a number of shiny, "glazed" fabrics were described in twelfth-

century Egyptian documents as being like glass or (rock-) crystal (Goitein 1999,

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IV-174). Thick, "pure" (presumably without any colour impurities, seeds or

cords) glass was highly prized as we have seen but at the same time thinness, translucency and fragility of glass were also admired. Abu Mansur Muhammad

b. Ahmad al-Daqiqi of Tus, living in the second half of the tenth century, compared a glass vessel to ice and water in its clarity and brilliance, and

arguably its "whiteness" (Rice 1958). The advantages of using glass over pottery and gold vessels were a subject of discussion, as related by the Arab commentator al-Jahiz (d. c.868-69): two misers from the eastern regions of Iran

discussed the merits of glass, one stating "Glass is better than any other material; it is non-porous and non-absorbent, and does not collect dust ... Glass ... withstands water and wine better than pure gold [vessels]" and "moreover it is manufactured, whereas gold is in its natural state ... glass is superior by virtue of

its cleanness. Finally, glass is transparent, while gold is opaque ... When a ray of light strikes the glass, the flame and the lamp together become a single source of light, reflecting each other's rays ... its brightness is doubled, and if it shines in

someone's eye it dazzles and may even blind him" (McNeill & Waldman 1973, 125-26). And of course there is the well-known Qur'anic "Nur" verse (sarah XXIV: 35) which compares a candle flame burning brightly in a glass lamp to

the message of the Qur'an.This "Mr" verse and the popular belief that the Prophet Muhammad and

his descendants, through the line of 'Ali and Fatima, possessed an aura of divine light (Flood 1999) ensured that translucency and brilliance of glass remained the

most important aesthetic criteria of "good" glass in the mediaeval Islamic Middle East. Such "spiritual" light was considered divinely beneficial and it is known that many mediaeval pilgrims to the Christian sties in the Levant had

similar beliefs as, when visiting the holy sites, they wore small glass mirrors set in plaster around their neck in order to "capture" the blessed light thought to radiate from holy relics (Flood 1999, 325). Translucency and the absence of any colour impurities were also prerequisites for glass produced for medical usage,

especially those used for visual diagnoses of urine samples and for measuring units of "cupped" blood, although the cups themselves were often crudely made of thick, deeply coloured glass.15 Such practices continued for centuries as

proved by the late-eighteenth-century Egyptian historian, al-Jabarti (d. 1825), who employed a glass analogy to argue the usefulness of history: "If this age should urinate in a bottle, time's physician would know its ailment" (Philipp &

Perlemann 1994, 1-6).The absence of impurities was also important in the manufacture of

spectacles. It appears that Venetian glassmakers produced glass lens for

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spectacles from the end of the thirteenth century (Ashtor 1992, VII-503) and, bearing in mind that Islamic optical science was more advanced than that of

Europe until the sixteenth century or later, presumably the advantages of convex

glass lens (over those of rock crystal) were known in the mediaeval Middle East. Eyeglasses are mentioned by Muslim poets from the beginning of the sixteenth

century. Qasim-i Kahi suggested for the devout Muslim "the heart's eyeglasses lie in the mirror of the knee"; in other words it is by sitting in meditation, that one's soul is illuminated with self-knowledge. Another, Kalim, compared the narcissus flower in early morning as wearing the eyeglasses of dew (Schimmel

1992, 296). However, the first unambiguous documentary reference of spectacles as distinct from (crystal) lenses in the Islamic world I have found so far is dated 3 March 1620, when the Carmelite priest, Father Thaddeus was

asked by the Safavid shah of Iran, 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629), to lend him his spectacles "with the attachments that fasten them to the ears ... saying he wanted to see whether that invention suited him too ... The Father wished to hand over the spectacle-case, too, so that the spectacles might the better be

protected against being broken. But the Shah said that there was no need he should not be afraid." It is to be hoped that he was correct in that promise (HC 1939, 1-246). One of the earliest illustrations of glasses is the portrait of Mir

Musavvir offering a petition drawn and painted by his son, Mir Sayyid 'Ali, circa 1565 (inv. No. 3.6191, b, Musee Guimet, Paris).16

Transparency and clarity logically lead to associations with honesty and

truthfulness, qualities easily broken and damaged by adverse actions. Al-Tabari

notes a report that the Sasanian shah, Khusraw II (d. 628) was pressed to submit

(to the inevitable truth of Islam?) by an angel of God, bearing two glass bottles which were shattered on his refusal, so foretelling the end of the Sasanian

dynasty in Iran (Bosworth 1999, 337). Centuries later these qualities were still recognized in certain nineteenth-century Arabic proverbs, such as: "The world is a mirror: show thyself in it, and it will reflect thy image" (i.e. it is best to be honest) or "A dirty liquor in a wretched bottle," a description of a bad character

of ill-kept appearance (Burckhardt 1972, 149).The fragility of glass was recognised by the Persian poet, Jami (d. 1492)

who pleaded in a couplet "Don't throw the stone of injury on the heart of the

poor; this glass can be broken easily, but it is difficult to repair" (Schimmel 1992, n. 35 on 439) and indeed, because a bride's contribution to the new household had to be returned intact to her and her family if the marriage was

dissolved, glass rarely formed part of her trousseau in Fatimid Egypt (Goitein 1999, IV-106). Often within the private household, glass vessels were kept in

Vol. XXXIX 2004 9

safety in the khizanah, a locked cupboard, the key to which was held only by the

man of the house and handed on the death-bed to his heir (Goitein 1999, IV-131). Deliberately breaking glass was therefore seen as profligate, reprehensible

behaviour as seen in a story of al-Tanukhi (d. 994), in which a man, eager to dispose of his last five thousand dinars, acted on the advice of a companion by

purchasing cut glass with all but five hundred dinars which he then spent on women, food and drink for a party. Two mice and a cat were then deliberately let loose among the glass with the inevitable result. The guests grabbed the fragments and "made a broken bottle into a cup, and a broken cup into a pomade

jar, and pasted up what was cracked; these they sold amongst themselves, making up a goodly number of dirhems" (McNeill & Waldman 1973, 103). This implies that even broken expensive glass had a certain second-hand value,

perhaps in the same way as chipped and repaired eighteenth-century European glass has today for some collectors.

Glassmaking was an obvious sign of a sophisticated culture and society,

one that was not based purely on agriculture and animal husbandry, according to the renowned philosopher and historian, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406): "Activities required for luxury customs and conditions exist only in cities of a highly developed culture ... Among such activities are those of glassblowers,

goldsmiths, perfumers, cooks, coppersmiths, biscuit makers, ... weavers of brocades, and the like ... Such crafts will exist in a particular city but not in others" (Rosenthal 1967, 11-302).

Goitein's researches into the Geniza documents found in a Jewish

synagogue, Cairo, and generally dated 1016-1240, indicate that there were other comparable links between these crafts, as well as merchants dealing in glass often also dealt in other expensive, luxurious goods, such as patterned silks and

coral. Like gold- and silversmiths and dyers, glass-workers entered into contractual arrangements with each other. A contact dated 1057 signed by two Jewish glassmaking partners stipulated the hiring of another glassmaker for a

year to work on the furnace, at a day rate of five dirhams plus one dirham for lunch; a penalty of five gold dinars was to be paid to two synagogues if the work was not done. This day rate was higher than the usual labourer's wage so it would appear this man was taken on to repair or rebuild the furnace, rather than

just feed it. Working at the furnace was recognised as hard physical labour undertaken in unpleasant conditions17 because those glassmakers who contributed more money or materials to the venture, worked less on the shop-

floor: a 1134 Cairo contract stipulated that the partner who loaned ten dinars and materials worth twice that amount to his partner, worked two days a week for

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over six months against the four days a week of the other. These Jewish documents also prove that Muslims and Christians worked in glass, sometimes

sharing the facilities with others of different faiths; the famous Maimodides ruled that it was lawful that a Muslim and a Jewish glass maker, working

alongside each other, to divide the profits so those accruing to Friday

production, when the Muslim absented himself from work, went to the Jewish glassmaker, and vice versa on profits from the Saturday working (Rosenthal 1999, 11-78, 110, 296, 306, V-169). Another indication of the hardship faced by the glassmaker as distinct from the cutter and decorator, working Away from the furnace, may be seen in the rates of pay of an Iraqi glasscutter (kharraz) about a

century earlier; he was paid only one and one-third dirhams or one and a half dirhams a day (Margoliouth 1992, 147). Glasscutters could be employed by the early-tenth-century Abbasid palace as mentioned by al-Hilal (d. 1056), working alongside carpenters and papermakers etc. (Serjeant 1972, 20).

The documentary evidence reveals that during the eighth to eleventh

centuries A.D. glass production was comparatively specialist with some thirteen types of manufacture recognised by different terminology (as distinct to seventeen in pottery), with some glassworks known for the manufacture of

window-glass, or lamps, or drinking glasses, or bottles and flasks, or beads whether it was eighth-century Basra or fifteenth-century Egypt (Shatzmiller 1994, 201, see also 224-26). In sixteenth-century Ottoman Istanbul, glass

engravers, painters, gilders and metal-foil decorators were recognised for their individual skills (Rogers 1983, 255). Despite the cultural standing of glass, and the public acknowledgement of the skills required and the harsh working conditions, comparatively few pieces of Islamic glass have survived marked

with the maker's name. Mayer in 1954 (1954, 262-65) managed to find only seven names, including the maker or decorator of a fourteenth-century Mamluk mosque lamp and Sarhos Ibrahim, the designer of the sixteenth-century stained-

glass windows in the Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul. Four years later, another name was added by Storm Rice (1958, 8-16) from a moulded glass vessel, which allowed workshop identification of another four similar pieces and a Toledo

glass which "possibly" gave the place of manufacture as Baghdad: "the only known Islamic glass with indication of its provenance epigraphically recorded

..." Since then, a few others are now known including one naming "'Uthman b. Abu Nasr, the glassmaker" scratched into the external wall of a brass dip mould,

and another on a lustre- or stained-painted glass identifying the maker or decorator as Sunbat and the production place as Damascus (Carboni 2001, 85 and 209).18

Vol. XXXIX 2004 11

Syrian glass was acknowledged as the finest in the mediaeval period. Tha'alibi (d. 1038) who spent most of his life living and working in the eastern

regions of Iran noted that Syria was known for its delicious apples, fine olive oil and "Also, the thinness and translucence of Syrian glass are proverbially famous; one says 'more delicate than Syrian glass' or 'clearer than Syrian

glass'" (Bosworth 1968, 118), with its major glassmaking workshops located in Tyre, Akka, Hebron, Tripoli, Armanaz, Antioch (today's Antakya) and Aleppo. That said, there was perceived or visually recognisable differences between the

production of the various Syrian centres as a late-eighteenth-century Mughal poet, Azad Bilgrami, alluding to the historic concept of the vault of the heavens,

queried "in dealing with this old sky, does it matter / Whether it is of European, Aleppan or Syrian glass?" (Schimmel 1992, 278). Al-Qazvini (d. 1283) spoke of the wonderful glass on sale in a special section of Aleppo's bazaars and some fifty years later an Iranian geographer wrote "the best glass founders are those of

Aleppo. The glass bottles from here are perfectly transparent and very famous"

(Lamm 1941, 63). All these Eastern Mediterranean towns were comparatively close to the rich

source of soda, the Eastern Mediterranean plant, Haloxylon articulatum, also known as Hammada scoparia or Salsoda kali/soda. The late-tenth-century commentator, al-Muqaddasi, mentioned the profitable exporting of such plant ash ushnan from Aleppo, and a fourteenth-century author Salab al-Din Kutubi

mentions ushnan mills in Damascus, but it was the Bavarian botanist, Leonhart Rauwolff, who in 1573 described this local Bedouin obtained kali by burning two types of plants (presumably, salsoda kali and salsoda soda) near the Tripoli coast to sell to keen Venetian customers (Ashtor 1992, 482, also 488, 494). This

trade had had a long history, at least from 1296 if not earlier and although soda was available from the vase deposits in the wadi Natrun region north of Cairo, that was considered very inferior in quality for the price to the Syrian stuff

(Ashtor 1992, 507; see Jomard c.1815 for late-eighteenth-century Egyptian soda). Of course this investigation is in the preliminary stages but it appears that the mediaeval Arabic literature, the work mainly of chroniclers, geographers,

philosophers, commentators and poets, does not contain much specialist information about the daily manufacture of glass, or any other major craft. Such

writers were more interested in other matters but also it is clear that those with a knowledge of glassmaking kept the secrets of the trade; al-Jabiz tells of the ninth-century miser, Khalid b. Yazid of Baghdad, being near to death, promised to reveal to his son certain important (and therefore financially rewarding)

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manufacturing secrets such as "the melting of marble, making of mosaic, recipes

for the manufacture of ... swords, manufacture of fir ` awni ['Pharaonic,' see

above] glass and the process of sublimation in the way it should be done"

(Serjeant 1997, 39). Other glassmaking centres definitely existed; a major archaeological

glassmaking site has been located close to the Samarra palaces, and the north bank of the Iraqi Tigris known locally as ma `mal al-zujdz and awaits further investigation (Northedge 1986). During the last two decades a number of furnaces identified with glassmaking have been excavated in controlled

archaeological investigation. In Solkhat in the Crimea (Kramarovsky 1998, 99), Bahnasa, middle Egypt (Baker, forthcoming), Raqqa, northern Syria (Henderson

1999) the remains of circular-walled furnaces were found, and this "beehive"

form is so strongly associated with the South Mediterranean glassmaking tradition that one European scholar has interpreted the Ottoman 1583 Surname manuscript illustration (ms. H. 1344 fol. 33, Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul)

showing such a glass furnace as indisputable evidence of Venetian domination over sixteenth-century Turkish glass manufacture. However, the rectangular

ground plan was also used for some mediaeval Islamic glass furnaces, in which the annealing chamber was located to one side of the main furnace rather than

over it as in the "beehive" model. Such furnaces have been found in Akka (late thirteenth century), Israel (Weinberg 1987) and is still the model for several late-twentieth-century workshops in Cairo (Henein & Gout 1974), Syria (Imam 1964; Gaulmier 1937, 53-59), Iran (Wulff 1966, 69-70) and Afghanistan (Reut

1973, 97-111). Glassmaking continued for centuries and indeed Arwanaz is still a centre of domestic glass production in Syria. However, but by the eighteenth century as

already noted by European travellers in Iran, the quality of the glass was low with bubbles and debris. During his travels, Volney (1787, 11-325) noted only one glassworks in operation, in Hebron; instead the soda was generally used for soap manufacture: "They have also some soap manufactories, the kali, for which

is sold them by the Bedouins, and a very ancient glass-house, the only one in Syria. They make there a great quantity of coloured rings, bracelets for the wrists and legs, and for the arms above the elbow, besides a variety of other

trinkets, which are sent even to Constantinople." The unsatisfactory quality of domestically-produced glass was also criticised by European travellers in Iran a century earlier, complaining of the "seeds," bubbles, striations and discolouring

in the glass, blaming the excessive use of cullet, unsatisfactory fuel and discontinuous furnace firing (Charleston 1974) but modern enthusiasts of

Vol. XXXIX 2004 13

Islamic glass will recognise most if not all these faults as characteristics of

fourteenth-century Mamluk enamelled glass of Egypt and Syria, so avidly

sought by Western collectors from the late nineteenth century. As yet we do not

know whether the fashion for such highly decorated glass in fourteenth-century

Egypt and Syria was customer-led as a reaction against "traditional" glass values

or promoted by the glassmaker to disguise falling standards in batch-production.

Notes

1 Since Kroger's 1995 publication , the final report of Ghubayra, including a short section with drawings and illustrations of some of the glass finds, has been published; see Baker 2000.

2 A number of preliminary reports concerning the Siraf excavations was published in the

British academic journal Iran, but detailed information regarding the glass finds and thediscoveries of the glass workshops is still unpublished.

3 Other than the five excavated sites, five others are said to be too ruined to yield useful results, while 'Amman and 'Anjar are viewed as problematic in the eyes of Grabar 1993, 93.

4 It is known that architectural glass from an Umayyad context was found at Qasr al-ljayr

al-Gharbi, and at Raqqa, in a ninth-century context; however very few details have been

published; see Lafond 1968, Abdul-Hak 1960. 5 Both Persepolis and Baalbek were described as mal'ab Sulayman (Solomon's resort);

Soucek 1975, 256; for further associations with Solomon in Iranian classical literature, see Melikian-Chirvani 1971; and in Ottoman literature, see Necipoglu-Kafadar 1985.

6 A fuller description is to be the subject of this author's paper at the September 2003

Congress of the International Association for the History of Glass, London, and subsequent

publication of the Annales. 7 It should be noted that Walid also associated with the building referred to himself as the

son of David, that is Solomon; Soucek 1993, 119. 8 An illustration of this "tile" fragment was published in Joundi 1975, 175 and fig. 79, and

Catalogue 1976, fig. 79. 9 Such moulds are still in operation in the 1980s, as seen by the author at the Whitefriars

glassworks, Middlesex, U.K. The ceramic fragment with glass adhering to two of its surfaces, identified as "mosaic" by Henderson 1996, 212, is a piece from a furnace pot still holding glass residue.

10 Lamm 1928, 109 no. 309. Soucek 1976, 85-86 and 95-99 suggests that the early Islamic mosaic decoration of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, would have been associated in the ninth-century Islamic mind with stories of Solomon beautifying his Temple there with gold and

jewels. 11 It is thought the gold-"sandwich" glass tiles (e.g. Corning Museum of Glass, New York

state, inv. No. 54.1.82), generally taken to be of Syrian or Iraqi manufacture, variously dated circa ninth-eleventh century, were also made as wall tiles.

12 The text is ambiguous: immediately before this short statement, Benjamin of Tudela was describing the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus but it is unlikely he was thinking of that

particular mosque as a glass-clad palace. It is known that the streets around this complex were closely associated with glassmaking by the early fourteenth century.

13 The exact weight of the mithq-al is not known but appears to have been closely related to

the weight of the contemporary dinar; E/2 q.v. "dinar." 14 Al -Qaddumi 1996, para. 126, n. 4, 314-15 suggests such a muhkam glass vessel might

have been similar in appearance to the so-called Hedwig glasses, cut in high relief; however, there is little archaeological evidence from the Islamic Middle East to support the earlier-held theory that the "Hedwig" glasses were made in the region.

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15 For an illustration of a cupper applying such a cup, see fourteenth-century Maqamat al-Hariri (ms. 22114, fol. 51, the British Library, London).

16 The Iranian artist, Mir Musavvir, and a colleague Sayyid Aqa. Jalal al-Din Mirak al-

Hasani, are known to have designed a jam-khii na (mirror-house, or pavilion whose internal walls were covered with glass mirror-work) for the Safavid prince Bahram, as recorded by Dust Muhammad in 1544; Binyon et al. 1933, 186. Other pre-eighteenth-century Islamic illustrations of people wearing glasses include: a portrait of "Fani, the painter," Qazvin work of the Safavid

period, 1580-90 (inv. no. 1948-12-11-011, the British Museum, London; and two portraits of Rita-yi 'Abbas' signed by Mu'in-i Musavvir, Isfahan, 1673 (Princeton University Library,

Garrett Collection and the other in a private collection). 17 See Evliya Celebi 1968, section XXXIII, 213 for comments on the seventeenth-century

glass workshops near Eyup and Haskoy, Istanbul: "Whoever wishes to see a specimen of the fire of hell, may look on the fire in these glass factories; but not withstanding its fury , it is but a spark in comparison of the fire of hell." Many Karaite Jewish families were resettled in Haskoy. After the 1660 fire in the Yeni Cami area, Golden Horn, destroyed their housing there.

18 Both items are now in the Corning Glass Museum, New York State, U.S.A.

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Documents

39_3 - Glass in Early Islamic Society